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Abstract

Nigerian universities are embracing Institutional Repositories (IRs) to digitise local grey literature (theses, dissertations, inaugural lectures, and monographs), to maximise their visibilities and intellectual output impacts. However, evidence has shown that most of the Nigerian universities that have adopted IR find it difficult to sustain. This study, therefore, was designed to examine the extent to which institutional (awareness, Lecturers’ Attitude towards IR- LAtIR, infrastructure, funding, and Digitisation Procedures- DP) and external (Technological Changes- TC and Copyright Issues- CI) factors correlate with IRs’ sustenance in Nigerian university libraries.

Vroom’s Expectancy Theory and Davis’ Technology Acceptance Model served as an anchor, while the survey design was adopted. Eight universities (Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria (ABU); Covenant University, Ota (CU); Federal University, Oye Ekiti (FUOYE); Federal University of Technology, Akure (FUTA); Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife (OAU); University of Ibadan, Ibadan (UI); University of Jos, Jos (UNIJOS) and University of Nigeria, Nsukka (UNN)) that were operating IRs as at 2016 were adopted. Three faculties (Science, Social Science and Arts/Humanities) that were common to these universities were adopted, while three departments were randomly selected from each faculty. Proportional sample size technique was adopted to select 10.0% of the lecturers in each department; making a total of 844 lecturers. Instruments used were Institutional (with five sub-scales) and External (with two sub-scales) factors questionnaires, IRs’ Sustenance Scale (r=0.82) and IRs Questionnaire (r=0.76). In-depth interviews were conducted with the 24 digitisation staff. Analysis of quantitative data were done with descriptive statistics, Pearson product-moment correlation and Multiple Regression at 0.05 level of significance while the qualitative data were thematically analysed.

Respondents’ age was 45.5 ± 2.65 years, while 51.5% were aware of IR , only 19.1% were knowledgeable about it, and 50.3% had positive attitude towards IR. Material contents of IRs were: theses/dissertations (25.9%), inaugural lectures (24.1%) and staff publications/journal articles (17.3%). The level of awareness of IRs was low in all the universities: FUOYE (37.0%), OAU (27.0%), UI (27.0%), FUTA (21.0%), UNN(14.0%), UNIJOS (13.0%), ABU (12.0%) and CU (12.0%). The CU(64.3%), OAU (53.6%), UNN (51.4%) and UI (51.0%) had favourable attitude towards IRs compared to others. Only CU had adequate infrastructural facilities and funding for IR sustenance. Awareness (r=0.27), LAtIR (r=0.47), funding (r=0.31), DP (r=0.15) and TC (r=0.18) had significant relationships with IRs sustenance. The independent measures had a joint significant prediction (F(2;748)=159.29; Adj. R2=0.30) on IRs sustenance, accounting for 29.7% of its variance. Lecturers’ Attitude towards IR (β=0.40), funding (β=0.33), awareness (β=0.15), DP (β=0.09) and CI (β=-0.09) contributed to IR. Technological support, inadequate computer system, software adoption, inadequate funding and infrastructural facilities and insufficient network were the major challenges to IR sustenance.

Lecturers’ negative attitude, poor funding, Low level of awareness, digitisation challenges, inadequate infrastructure, technological and copyright issues influenced the sustenance of institutional repositories in Nigerian universities. Therefore provision should be made for adequate funding, effective technological support and improved computer networking as well as embarking on mass awareness campaign, to ensure better sustenance of institutional repositories in Nigerian universities.